In fact, I've seen the "solar and wind cover lots of land" in every single post about energy that comes on HN or Reddit. The answer the "compared to what?" is

In fact, I've seen the "solar and wind cover lots of land" in every single post about energy that comes on HN or Reddit. The answer the "compared to what?" is everything. It is clean, continuous, it's compact and other benefits. But it's expensive. You need over 30 years (being optimist) to break even. You need government financial support because no bank would finance that. That's the reason only countries like France or China build them: the costs are partially hidden in the country budgets or public owned corporations balances. About hydro, that was a "unknown unknown" paraprhasing Rumsfeld. You can't avoid what currently seems our best bet to our current knowledge (wind and solar) because maybe there's an unknown unknown that could bit us hard in 40 years.